Guest Author - Gordon A. Watts

Editor,
Ottawa Citizen.

Re: 'Grits stack House agenda to delay defeat' (Ottawa Citizen 29 April 2005, p. A1).

While MPs hassle over whether a federal election will be called before or after Justice Gomery brings down his report about who did what in regards the AdScam scandal, genealogists and historians are bombarding Party and House leaders, and their own MPs, with emails and faxes. Their goal is to see all parties get together to debate and pass Second and Third Readings of Bill S-18--An Act to amend the Statistics Act in a single day.

Bill S-18 passed Third Reading in the Senate 20 April 2005 and received First Reading in the House the following day. If it passes in the House and receives Royal Assent before an election is called it will resolve an issue that has been ongoing for more than twenty years--that of public access to Historic Census records, 92 years after collection. If it does not, genealogists and historians will have to start their efforts over again--for the FIFTH time.

Existing legislation permits the access sought but it has been withheld because of a 'policy decision' by Statistics Canada.

Bill S-18 is a government Bill. It has the support of the Chief Statistician of Canada, the National Librarian and Archivist, and the Privacy Commissioner. The Canada Census Committee, the Canadian Historical Association and the Association of Canadian Archivists support it. The access it would provide was supported by the report of an Expert Panel appointed by the government in 1999 and by a series of Town Hall meetings in 2000/2001. 210 Members of Parliament, including all four House Leaders and three of four Party leaders, are currently on record as supporting the access we seek. More than 75,000 signatures supporting that access have been sent to the House of Commons and the Senate.

Since 1998, our efforts to regain the public access to Historic Census records we are entitled to have seen seven Parliamentary Sessions in four governments. We have seen three elections and are currently looking at the possibility of a fourth. We have seen five Ministers of Industry (responsible for Statistics Canada), three Privacy Commissioners and two Information Commissioners. We have seen at least three Private Member Motions and four Private Member Bills in the House of Commons, two Private Senator Bills and now two government Bills in the Senate. At times we have been advised by MPs and Senators that this issue has generated more correspondence to them than any other subject. Each time it appeared we were close to achieving our goal, a Session was prorogued or an election was called, causing any Bills or Motions to die on the Order Paper.

We call upon ALL Members of Parliament--please expedite passage of Bill S-18 by foregoing the Committee and Report stages--pass Second and Third Readings in a single day. An estimated 7.5 million genealogists and historians in Canada wish to spend their summer and beyond researching the long overdue records of the 1911 Census of Canada, rather than having to continue the fight to see them released.

Gordon A. Watts
Co-chair Canada Census Committee
Port Coquitlam, BC